


What the Future Holds

by Paint_It_Yellow



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! GX
Genre: GX Month Day 30, Gen, New Years celebrations, Ryo Fubuki Fujiwara and Edo are mentioned briefly, This is just shameless fanservice basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 01:20:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12222837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paint_It_Yellow/pseuds/Paint_It_Yellow
Summary: As per every year since their graduation, the gang from Duel Academia gather for a celebration.





	What the Future Holds

After graduation, there was only slight uncertainties over where they would end up. It had been a chaotic few years that wouldn’t be forgotten anytime soon, for sure, but they had known that in the end they’d have to live a normal life. Not everyone would experience what they had and, you know what? Shou decided that that was a good thing, he didn’t really find the idea of people regularly disappearing off to other universes to fight a card monster particularly appealing- he was sure that Asuka wouldn’t be too thrilled either having to go through that on a regular basis either with her pupils.

Since they had all split off for their different goals three years ago, they had found it hard to keep in touch. Well, of course some were worse than others.

Misawa was practically impossible to find, only ever sending a brief message over New Years if he could but, well, Shou couldn’t blame him all that much- after all, he _was_ exploring a different dimension. Allegedly, both Misawa and Tania had been doing research of some sort (he had been told, he just blanked out half-way through the explanation as it lengthened) but Shou didn’t buy that, he totally just wanted to spend some years worth of alone time with his girlfriend.

Judai was probably the second hardest to get ahold of. He was only slightly averse to being around them- he’d gotten better since he first left on his travels- but he seemed to get caught up in way too much that whenever he or someone else actually scheduled a meet-up he’d just end up disappearing off the grid for a few weeks or so. It was infuriating but, as Shou had come to learn, he always had been. Somethings just don’t change.

Manjoume was relatively easy. It wasn’t that he and Shou were particularly the best of friends but they would see each other often, mostly through dueling circuits and such. Manjoume hadn’t calmed down a lot from his school days- on stage anyway. He was still prideful and confident but he seemed to have a bit more of a maturity about him which was great since Shou was pretty sure he would be ready to murder him if he had to deal with past-Manjoume nowadays. At first, the only reasons he claimed to meet up with everyone was because of Fubuki and Asuka _which is total bull by the way._

Asuka was by far the easiest though. She had taken up post at Duel Academy itself, teaching and guiding the students there. It suited her, Shou thought at least. She- supposedly at the behest of Fubuki- was the one who first started organising meetings, though later she seemed to do it more out of not wanting to lose touch of her friends herself.

Then, of course, there was him. There wasn’t much to say about him. He was still the same as when he left, unlike everyone else who had grown and changed so much over the short span of years. He continued working his way through the pro world, that was the one thing he was sure he would do. It had started as a dream stemming off of his brother’s but it didn’t take long for the enjoyment to become contagious, clinging to him and thus building onto the dream to be more than just one born off his brother’s. Upon further thought, maybe he had changed since he had left school. Just maybe.

Of course, there were a lot of other people that would arrive at meet-ups, sometimes unwanted. Most of the time unwanted actually, but Shou didn’t think he had a place to tell them to leave after having spent such amounts of time together, y’know, saving the world? That sort of ‘spending such amounts of time together’.

And so, it was that time of the year again. The one time of the year they always met up. The eve of the day of beginnings- New Years Eve to be exact about things. Celebrations were small with only the lot of them in one of their houses counting down to New Years, catching up with each other and getting the yearly transmission from Misawa. It wasn’t what Shou had really expected when he first graduated and honestly? Yeah, it did disappoint him slightly that they didn’t get to meet up all too much anymore, but it was fine. _Fine_ perhaps being the best word to use in this situation. It wasn’t the most ideal situation, sure- his own travelling and training didn’t exactly make him any better than the others- but it was better than the worst option and that was good enough.

As his friends filed into his house and he welcomed them in one by one, he drove those thoughts away. This was a nice occasion for them all to be together in one room together, talking, laughing- just like the good old days. Well, take that term with a pinch of salt, of course, but the sentiment still stands.

Asuka arrived first, the space beside her devoid of her brother- who was out having his own celebrations with Ryo, Fujiwara and apparently Edo, if he remembered what his brother had said right- and instead replaced by Rei. Soon after that, Kenzan made his way in followed by a somewhat exasperated-looking Manjoume, who both seemed to settle on opposite sides of the room, Manjoume taking root next to Asuka in order to complain while Rei and Kenzan easily struck up conversation.

Rei and Kenzan were sort of enigmas as far as his knowledge of those gathering today went. He hadn’t heard much from them personally but he had heard of their goings on from the others- mainly Asuka for rather obvious reasons- though luckily he had received a heads up from Kenzan that they were coming over social media unlike the previous times they’d decided to turn up.

Judai, expectantly, was the last one to show though in record time and looking like he’d ran a mile- which he probably had, no doubt. Shou didn’t really get much of a chance to say more than a greeting before he had excused himself to go tidy himself up slightly.

With Judai’s arrival, Shou took that as the signal for him to take a seat himself and it didn’t take long for him to manage to find his way into Asuka and Manjoume’s conversation. It hadn’t been about much other than them catching up with each other. Shou had talked a bit about some of his latest duels, trying to avoid the topic of one of his more recent ones in which he had barely won after getting driven into a corner, eventually though it had to have been brought up.

“It’s impressive that you managed to get out of it,” Asuka had encouraged, “It really kept me on the edge of my seat.”

Shou was more embarrassed than he was surprised. “You watched it?”

“She watches all our duels, moron,” Manjoume _helpfully_ added in which earned a half-glare from Shou that was ignored.

Asuka, however, had much more willpower than him and ignored Manjoume’s comment completely. “I watched it with one of my classes,” she supplied, the corners of her mouth quirking up every so slightly in the way that they often did nowadays, “Everyone was yelling at the screen.”

“Not calling me an idiot, I hope.”

“Not at all, if anything they were more worried. You have a lot of supporters, you know?”

“Of course he knows,” Manjoume scoffed, “Have you even watched the interviews of him? There’s always a crowd of screaming people!”

Asuka raised her brow and glanced at Manjoume, a look of disbelief on her face, “You watch his interviews?”

Manjoume’s face flushed slightly- made much more evident by his pale-as-ever skin- before rejecting the mere prospect, met with a good natured laugh from both Shou and Asuka. He tried to direct the subject back to dueling, specifically his, and, since they were such kind people, they decided to allow him to though Shou doubted that Asuka would forget this- she’d probably find a way to use it as a sort of incentive or something. She works in mysterious ways.

As the conversation continued, Shou slowly slipped away from the conversation after finding he didn’t have all that much to contribute. Instead, he made his way to set up the monitor that they were to use for when Misawa got around to contacting- assuming he hadn’t forgotten, but that was very unlike him to forget something. Pondering the hypotheticals that could happen, though highly hoping they wouldn’t, he continued to set up the monitor, connecting it to his TV when a body seemed to plop down on the chair beside him. Shou paused and glanced at Judai for a moment before turning back to what he was doing, quickly connecting a few wires up before standing back up straight.

“Made it here in record time,” Shou commented.

Judai grinned at that. “Glad you noticed! Took me _forever_ to get over here, I was going to take a taxi but then I realised that that would take too long so I had to sprint for it! It was insane!”

He grinned, it was always the same from Judai- Insanity, that is. “Sure sounds it, too. Any news?”

Judai’s eyes lit up, as if he had been just waiting for someone to ask him, and he began to tell of what he had last gotten himself into since the two had last talked all those months ago. If there was one thing you could be sure of with Judai, it was that he always had something interesting to say.

“So I met up with Johan since he was in the area and I can’t believe that he never told me he was duelling in the pro leagues before now! I mean c’mon, I thought we had something special here, it was betrayal of the highest order, Shou, I’m tellin’ ya.”

“You didn’t know? Don’t you watch TV at all nowadays?” Shou asked before taking a moment to follow that up with a ‘You know what? Nevermind.”

“I can’t believe even you knew of it before I did.” Judai crossed his arms, the look of mock-hurt still on his face before he leaned back in the chair and his facial features relaxed. “Man, I’m so out of the loop nowadays.”

“Well, you never were that quick on the uptake,” Shou teased.

“Hey! I take offense to that.”

“Oh yeah? Remember whe-” Asuka had started to say, seeming to have overheard their conversation.

“Nope, not listening, can’t hear you!”

Both Shou and Asuka laughed, Shou settling into a contented smile.

“You could always upgrade your phone so you could keep up with the news properly,” Asuka suggested, reminding those who heard that Judai had objectively one of the worst phones on the market.

“I barely have the money to keep that one up and running, gimme a break guys, not having a job does that to you.

“You’re such a child,” Manjoume chided in, clicking his tongue.

“I’m twenty one! Legally an adult!”

“Mentally though? Not so much.”

“I can’t believe _all_ of my friends are betraying me. Just great.”

The three of them just laughed at Judai’s dramatics.

“Hey, Marufuji, isn’t it around time for Misawa’s message?” Kenzan called over, interrupting the bout of laughter just as it was dying off.

Shou took a glance at the clock on the wall above the door to make sure before affirming the statement, leaning over to switch the monitor on.

The screen was mostly static for the first minute or so, the room suddenly full of an air of tense excitement, hoping that this wouldn’t be the year that the monitor stopped working. Luckily, the static fell away to make out a blurry image of what appeared to be Misawa before it started to become clearer.

“It’s working! … Right?” Kenzan asserted, though seeming less sure as the picture on the screen didn’t seem to move for a few moments.

“Yes, well, I’m sure that even if it wasn’t working I’d still be able to hear you across dimensions if you’re that loud,” Misawa answered, the picture moving just slightly off-sync to what he was saying as he spoke.

“Good to see you too,” Asuka replied, though she smiled.

“A pleasure, I’m sure.”

“Hey! Misawa! Any news?” Judai jumped straight into the main question.

Misawa seemed to pause, shifting slightly off-screen for a moment, muttering something to who they presumed to be Tania, before appearing again.

“Well yes, in fact, but not much that would interest someone like you unless you’ve suddenly taken up an interest in the science of dimensional travelling.”

“Anything that isn’t that?” Shou offered.

“Well, mostly not. We travelled some more of a different dimension from the one we’re currently in but a war seemed to break out not soon after.”

“A war?”

“Well, I’m not sure of the details but-”

“It was some sort of territorial war,” Tania cut in herself, “Really messy, nothing to go into detail about though. This is supposed to be a happy occasion, yeah?”

A few members of the room nodded although Tania couldn’t have seen.

“So, any hopes of you coming back here again anytime soon?” Judai asked, seeming hopeful.

Misawa, however, just shook his head. “Not anytime soon, at least. Dimension travelling works in a loop, who knows how many dimensions it would be until we naturally get back around to yours.”

“What about on your end then?” Tania asked once again, just as Misawa was about to speak again.

They all exchanged a few glances, allowing each other to speak in turn. Asuka went first, mostly talking about a few of her classes and any of the strange goings on at the academy- most of which had died down considerably since they had last graduated, amazingly. Manjoume talked curtly about his duels, the room swelling with his arrogance at not having lost once in the entire season thus far- though Asuka asserted that it was only a matter of time if he kept up that sort of arrogance about it. Shou essentially spoke of the same, though also of the condition of his brother and how he was doing in the world of pro dueling- and that was, extremely well, unsurprisingly. Judai had looked like he was about to unload a whole years worth of adventures onto poor Misawa but eventually decided against it and instead telling of bits and parts of each and of the people he met- though he ended it with a want to duel Misawa since it had been way, _way_ too long.

“It’s almost midnight!” Rei interrupted from one of the couches, causing everyone to take a look up to the clock to find that Rei wasn’t lying- not that she had much reason to- and it was indeed almost midnight.

“Ah, wait! I think I have party poppers in the kitchen!” Shou said before scrambling off to said place to find the party poppers.

“Too bad Misawa and Tania don’t have party poppers,” Rei sighed.

“They can just pretend! Like ‘Pa-Ang!’” Judai exclaimed, doing his best imitation of a party popper.

“We are not doing that.”

“I think you should,” Tania countered.

“And what about you?!”

It wasn’t too long after though that Shou raced back in with the party poppers, passing them out to everyone in the room, everyone taking a glance to the clock.

“Five… Four… Three… Two…"

There was a pause, as if for dramatic effect.

“ONE!” And the party poppers went off.

There was a huge collective cheer as they all went around shaking hands and wishing each other a Happy New Years and many more, hopefully, Misawa and Tania just stating theirs over the monitor- the sentiment was there all the same.

Ah… They really didn’t want this moment to end. 

**Author's Note:**

> I've never wrote the GX characters before, sorry if they seem a bit out of character- just chalk that up to some off-screen development? It had been three years after all haha! 
> 
> With this ends GX Month and it's been great, I had a ton of fun and I thought it would be only fitting to round it off with a small fic. 
> 
> Hope it was enjoyable!


End file.
